Breadcrumb Trail Links
News Local News
Article content
Denis Joel was seated on a plush red chair in Fort Macleod’s Empress Theatre — a brick building at the heart of the southern Alberta town’s art scene — watching a drag show on Saturday night when she thought, “What’s that smell?”
Looking behind, she saw four youths in the back row leak what appeared to be black liquid on the hardwood floor. As time passed, people seated close to it started gagging.
Advertisement 2
Article content
Article content
Before entering the building that night, Joel, the board chair of the Empress Theatre, had been relieved to see a group of RCMP officers patrolling the place. She now felt disturbed seeing youth vandalize the historic building. But she was hardly surprised.
For months, posts on social media advertising the event had received vicious comments from residents disparaging the town’s pride community. Many of those remarks had been removed as of Monday. But they often targeted the group for “indoctrinating children,” a commonly used argument by the far-right to attack members of the LGBTQ+ community.
The youths began pouring the liquid from glass bottles onto the carpet and curtains, then threw the jars in the foyer, smashing it as its contents spread across the room.
Jane O’Connor, board chair of Fort Macleod’s pride community who was present at the event, said she was “devastated to see the extent to which they would vandalize the Empress Theatre just for us using it for an event.”
“I can’t say I was very surprised,” said O’Connor, whose team had asked for police support. The theatre has since been closed until further notice.
Article content
Advertisement 3
Article content
Two youth suspects were arrested Saturday night by Fort Macleod RCMP. Police found the liquid to be fisher and marten lure oil. “The investigation is ongoing,” police said in a statement. “As the suspects are youth, no further information will be released.”
The suspects cannot be named due to provisions under the Youth Criminal Justice Act.
The incident wasn’t the only attack on Saturday.
Earlier that day, during a pride fair where community members had gathered for an afternoon of performances by various artists, some residents held a “peaceful” protest against the fair along with a prayer circle. Then, as the community began raising the pride flag, two people came to stop them.
“It was so disappointing to see that happen — we were heartbroken,” said O’Connor.
After the vandalism in the theatre, later that morning residents found the flagpole had been sawed down with the pride flag removed.
O’Connor said the attacks are part of a larger trend where violence against the LGBTQ+ community is “escalating.”
While a few years ago the opposition was quiet, it has recently been growing louder, with people sending aggressive messages to the pride committee’s social media account, O’Connor said.
Advertisement 4
Article content
“I don’t think it’s an isolated event,” O’Connor said.
The number of police-reported hate crimes against members of the LGBTQ+ community in Canada rose by 64 per cent from 2019 to 2021, according to Statistics Canada.
Corinne Mason, who teaches women’s and gender studies at Mount Royal University, said the rise in hatred toward the community has been fuelled by the pandemic, which largely limited people’s interactions to those on social media, creating a breeding ground for radicalism.
“What we’re seeing now are really the effects of the mainstreaming of fringe ideologies and viewpoints being taken out by people who may or may not know that they are promoting and spreading these kinds of hateful ideologies,” said Mason.
The trend, which first took hold in the U.S. with a rise in anti-trans legislation, has now spilled into Canada, they said.
“And so, for example, what’s happening in New Brunswick and what’s happening in Saskatchewan around the role of parental rights in the K-12 education system really signals a right wing, anti-LGBTQ anti-trans politics, that has really exploded in the United States, come into the Canadian context,” Mason said.
The vandalism by youths morally affected members and allies of the town’s pride community, but no one was harmed by the incident, Joel said. “There was no real violence,” Joel said. Apart from the smell, “which was pretty horrible,” she said, “it was just an act of vandalism.”
Instead of calling the event off, the group then chose to keep going.
“We just really took the attitude that we’re not going to let this ruin the show,” Joel said. “We just carried on.”
Comments
Postmedia is committed to maintaining a lively but civil forum for discussion and encourage all readers to share their views on our articles. Comments may take up to an hour for moderation before appearing on the site. We ask you to keep your comments relevant and respectful. We have enabled email notifications—you will now receive an email if you receive a reply to your comment, there is an update to a comment thread you follow or if a user you follow comments. Visit our Community Guidelines for more information and details on how to adjust your email settings.
Join the Conversation